Shadow Slave

With a faint smile on her face, Nephis nodded and raised her sword, pointing it at him in invitation. Sunny summoned the Sin of Solace and took a stance opposite her. From the Forgotten Shore to the basement of his home in the peaceful terrace district, they had trained with each other numerous times. This simple sequence of actions was as natural for them as breathing.

However, today, there was an awkward pause.

Sunny scratched the back of his head and glanced at the jade jian.

"That... isn't going to work, is it?"

Nephis seemed to have come to a similar conclusion, looking at him sheepishly.

'No, what the hell... since when does she know how to emote? This is just too cute...'

He coughed.

The problem facing them was that both had grown too powerful - and, subsequently, the weapons they used were too powerful, too. The Sin of Solace was a Transcendent Memory of the Fifth Tier, and quite a harrowing one at that. Sunny was not entirely sure what the level of Neph's longsword was, but it had to be quite a menacing weapon, as well, considering that it had come from the soul arsenal of a Saint.

It would be already bad enough if the Sin of Solace damaged or destroyed it. But what if Sunny was not careful enough and scratched Nephis in the process? The curse of madness carried by the jade blade would either crush her mental defenses, or at least put debilitating pressure on her mind for a period of time.

Standing some distance away, the spirit of the jian smiled.

"No, no. Don't worry... I'll be gentle."

However, that smile of his was more than a little bit sinister.

Sunny frowned, then dismissed the jade sword and got lost in thought for a few moments. Eventually, a smile of delight appeared on his lips.

"Let's do this."

them suddenly moved and flowed toward him, then slowly formed into two inky black swords. One of them was a

this was one of the shapes Sunny had practiced relentlessly, after all. The longsword was a little bit tricky, since he had never created one before. Nevertheless, he was familiar with it as well, and

easier than shaping them into articulated hands, since weapons were static by nature. However, in reality, shaping a sword was just as

possess certain characteristics to feel right in the hand - weight, balance, flexibility and rigidity, center of percussion that Neph had recently mentioned, and so on. It was especially daunting with something like the odachi, which possessed a flexible

Sunny had even studied a bit of blacksmithing on the network. Back then, Clan Valor had been preventing him from visiting the Dream Realm, so

basic of them. Sunny could also affect the material composition of the manifested shadows, although that demanded a higher essence expenditure. He could manipulate the density of the

past, all these internal transformations had been very difficult to achieve,

was

his hand, he secretly held his breath. She

"That works."

proud smile

"Let's begin, then."

piece of art in the form of a jian, but Sunny's heart still lay with blades like this one. Maybe because

slightly, Sunny pushed

were instantly entangled in a breathtaking dance of singing steel. Their swift figures blurred, and soon, nothing but a dark shape and a light shape could be seen, moving across the green moss as they weaved and

'She really has improved...'

to control both the battlefield

steps seemed the same. The cadence seemed the same. The offensive and defensive

punch that seemed too extreme even for an Ascended Terror. Her defense was nearly impenetrable, alternating between immovable hardness and inviting softness,

was drowning

is she

spoken about. The relationship between mass, acceleration, and force... he was intimately

had long incorporated the ability to change his weight at will into his battle skill, so much so that it had become second nature to him. By manipulating how much his body, or various parts of it, weighed